Red Sun

I awoke to the sounds of a few drops of rain pitter-pattering against the helmet that I had laid across my face. My clothes were damp and uncomfortable, and I could feel mud seeping into my boots and back. Slowly and achingly, I rose from my shallow sleep. The red sun was just rising, spreading out in orange, pink and crimson across the sky. I looked around at the clearing we were in; it used to be a field of some kind, but had been burnt to the ground not long ago. The trees on one side of the clearing, facing towards the sun, had suffered the same fate, but on the other side they still stood, a remnant of the proud jungle-like woods that had been torn apart by this war.

It was September, 1968, and I was a soldier in the American army in Vietnam. I’d been here for a few years, on the shore mainly typing up reports, doing inventories, and other such typical assistant work for a Captain there. However, a month ago he’d been sent out to capture a strategic point nearby, and neither he nor his squads were heard from again. Without work, I was assigned to serve for a notorious jungle fighter, Sergeant James “The Butcher” Rebman. Stories and legends were whispered throughout the ranks of the army, some good, and some bad. I’d heard that once, when all of his men were dead, he’d charged and singlehandedly taken a Viet Cong machine gun position. On the other hand, there were stories of him killing innocent Vietnamese people in the most brutal ways possible, mainly just for fun. We hadn’t seen combat yet, but Sergeant Rebman seemed to be very capable of living up to his legend. He was cold, calculating, and ruthless, and I’d only known him for a couple of days.

“Get up everyone, we’re moving out,” he yelled, interrupting my thoughts.

The rest of the soldiers, who, for the most part, had been awake, rushed to their feet. Most of them were as frightened as me of the Sergeant, and none knew if he’d butcher one of his own men like he butchered the innocent Vietnamese here. I picked up my rifle and stood at attention in this field of mud and ashes, in formation with the rest of the platoon. The Sergeant quickly surveyed the line, and then started walking towards the burnt trees, yelling “March ”

The remnants of the woods were no better than the fields. The rain was still soaking into my already uncomfortable clothes, and the path beneath me was uneven, randomly muddy, with fallen trees every which way. There were occasional instances when I thought I could see a submerged body limply lying in the mud. But perhaps they were just trees, rags, or ashes – I would never know, since we weren’t able to stop marching. We walked for a few hours through the difficult, cluttered terrain before we reached a ridge. In the valley below lay a dark, muddy river. Sergeant Rebman addressed us, “We’re gonna go west along this ridge for a few miles and then, if all goes well, some of you boys will have your first fire fight.” He smiled, “Move out ”

My heart sunk a bit as these words came out of his mouth. I wasn’t looking forward to combat at all, especially under the Butcher. I remembered some of the other stories I’d heard about him forcing his new, green soldiers to kill helpless innocents so that they could become heartless killers just like him. I’d never killed anyone before, and I prayed that the day would never come. I’d promised myself that I’d never kill a woman or child when I went into battle, but maybe war was different than a righteous crusade for good… Maybe it was just a brutal massacre for a loose, stupid reason. I suppose I’d be finding out soon enough. The Viet Cong forces we’d be fighting were known for ambushing men such as ourselves in the jungle, and doing things just as bad if not worse than what our Sergeant, the Butcher, was rumored to do. As we walked along the edge of the ridge, I saw that we were coming up to a dense jungle.

Inadvertently, I shivered with a bit of fear as to what lay ahead.

As we marched along the ridge I glanced at the sun; it was high above us, almost noon. Down in the river an empty, battered raft sailed along. A muddy cloth hung off the back of it (at least, I thought it was cloth). As we entered the jungle the bright light of the sun was reduced to shafts that poked through the cover of the trees like pins. I looked up at the Sergeant ahead, continuously slashing at the vines and vegetation, a steadfast determination in his stride. The young man beside me had a look more frightened than mine on his face. Afraid that I might alert some Viet Cong with the sound of my voice, I threw a couple of paranoid glances around the jungle. “Is this your first time out in the field?” I asked him.

“Y—yes…” he replied hesitantly.

“Mine too,” I said. “What were you doing before you came out to the front?”

“I was back at home… I just got married and then they sent me here,” he said, with a worried look on his face. “We were about to have our honeymoon and then I got a letter in the mail saying that I’d been drafted and I had to come here in a week. I just got here, and the only thing I want is to get out of here and back to her…”

Not knowing what to say, I simply went silent, feeling a lot of pity for the guy – and his wife. “You’re here for a year?”

“No, only 6 months, I can’t wait to get back,” he sighed. “I don’t think I’m going to live through it though. For all I know I could die today.”

“Well I hope neither of us dies…”

We kept walking along the jungle trail in silence. As we went further it got thicker and thicker until we were walking in almost complete darkness; I knew it was the perfect spot for an ambush. Everyone in the platoon (except for the Sergeant, who carried on with his usual calm, cold demeanor) peered into the jungle, looking to see if something dire awaited them there. But as we walked on, nothing came. Hours later the jungle began to grow thinner again, and I could see ahead a short hill that led to sunlight. Sergeant Rebman stopped at the base of it and turned to us.

“Here we are boys,” he said, spitting on the ground. “We’ll crawl up to the top of the hill, but don’t show any part of you over it, even for a peek, or they might see us. When I give the order to fire, stand up and open fire on anything that moves: the enemy is in the clearing just there.”

I knew the worst part about this is that the Viet Cong we were about to face could really be anything… Maybe a massive fortified position or a huge camp of soldiers… Who knows? I got down on my knees and lay down in the mud, beside the just-married young man. We crawled slowly and quietly to the top of the short hill and hid behind it. Guns were readied, checked and loaded as we prepared to open fire on the Viet Cong that lay just over the muddy hill. The Sergeant glanced around, a blazing fury in his eyes, checked his machine gun one last time, and stood up, yelling at the top of his lungs, “OPEN FIRE ”

I stood up as quickly as I could in the mud and drew my rifle, looking onto the field before us. I randomly fired a couple shots before I realized what was going on. There were in fact no soldiers in front of us, but a small village full of women, children, and the elderly. As Rebman charged and some of the men followed, I saw the worst sights ahead of me. A boy cried in agony, shot in the leg beside his dead mother. An old man, shot in the neck, weakly tried to get up. As the Sergeant charged he beckoned the rest of us to follow, and I numbly obliged. The machete he had used to cut through the jungle became an instrument of cruel death and agony for the innocent people before us. The things he did in a matter of seconds are simply too disgusting for me to describe, and I simply staggered into the village, shocked by what was happening. After the slaughter, about a dozen prisoners, some wounded, were rounded up and thrown on the ground. Our platoon surrounded them as Rebman decided what to do.

He looked around and selected myself, the young man, and a couple others, and called us forward before the prisoners. “This was your first time in battle,” he said. “But now you will truly learn to kill. You are not a soldier unless you can look someone who doesn’t deserve to die in the eyes, and then end their life.” He pulled an old man to his feet and beckoned a soldier over. “Do it,” he said, in a cold ruthless tone.

The man, shaking, raised his rifle, tears in his eyes, and submitted to the Sergeant’s wishes. “Good,” said the Butcher, as the man walked away solemnly, broken like the rest of the platoon.

Two other men did the same as the prisoners whimpered and cried, awaiting their death. The Sergeant pulled a young woman to her feet, and beckoned the young man over. “Kill her,” he said cruelly.

The young man’s jaw was quivering and there were tears in his eyes as he raised his rifle, but he couldn’t do it. “No, no I can’t ” he screamed as he turned away. “My wife… she looks like my wife.” He cried, “I just want to go home to her… please.”

“Cowards don’t deserve to live,” Rebman said, and fired a cruel, deadly burst of bullets into the young man’s back. The young man’s mouth moved as if trying to speak as he fell to the ground, dying, and I knew that his last thoughts were of his wife – just married and now widowed. I was simply numb with shock and sadness as the Butcher turned to me. The young man let out his dying breath as Rebman ordered me, “Don’t fail like he did. Kill her.”

The young woman, held up by the hair, whimpered as I fumbled a bit with my gun. I knew she was completely innocent, that she didn’t deserve to die. I’d sworn never to kill a woman like this but… If I didn’t I’d be shot, or maybe worse. But I saw now that Rebman was not only butchering the innocent people of Vietnam with cruelty beyond all measure, but he had just killed a fellow soldier, a man with a great life before him, and widowed a woman back in America. How many people had he killed? If anyone deserved to die it would be him, but if he died we would be left leaderless out here, to be consumed by the elements and the Viet Cong. His killer would probably be tortured, or arrested, or something horrible for doing so. He was a good soldier, but it seemed to me that his cruelty made him the one who deserved to die, not the young woman.

I looked at the platoon at the men who’d done this before. They were soldiers, loyal to America. I’d come here for America, and if I had to kill a young woman to fight further for my country, maybe that would be the best thing to do. But the cruelty of this man, the Butcher, was hard to ignore. What was I to do?

I knew that I didn’t have much time, so I set my mind to my decision. There were tears in my eyes, knowing I could never go back. Stalling a bit, my lips quivering, I held and checked my rifle. With trembling hands, I raised the gun and aimed, hoping that my choice would be the right one.

I fired.